The Vent and Rant Thread

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Blossom

My sister saw her doctor on Friday. Someone cancelled and they had an last minute opening. The doctor took one look at her and ordered therapy. So she's going to have in home therapy finally!

Mom finally has a health aide. She's running the woman ragged already. I met her today. She seems a little lost. I told Mom stop being bossy because my mom is super bossy. As kids she would sit and do nothing and boss us around. Some things never change.

Hubby worked today. The factory is opened again!

YAY! Great to hear some good news!

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Blossom

My sister saw her doctor on Friday. Someone cancelled and they had an last minute opening. The doctor took one look at her and ordered therapy. So she's going to have in home therapy finally!

Mom finally has a health aide. She's running the woman ragged already. I met her today. She seems a little lost. I told Mom stop being bossy because my mom is super bossy. As kids she would sit and do nothing and boss us around. Some things never change.

Hubby worked today. The factory is opened again!



Sent from my XT1528

Fantastic.

[Rumpelteazer]

I like to listen to podcasts on my Sonos before I go to sleep. I'm getting very annoyed with the fact that the length of the podcast isn't correct. It doesn't list the length in the selection screen, but in the play screen is does list it. I've had a podcast listed as 45 minutes only last 15 minutes. Last night I picked a new to me podcast and the first one should have been 53 minutes, it turned out to be almost twice as long.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Blossom

My sister saw her doctor on Friday. Someone cancelled and they had an last minute opening. The doctor took one look at her and ordered therapy. So she's going to have in home therapy finally!

Mom finally has a health aide. She's running the woman ragged already. I met her today. She seems a little lost. I told Mom stop being bossy because my mom is super bossy. As kids she would sit and do nothing and boss us around. Some things never change.

Hubby worked today. The factory is opened again!



Sent from my XT1528

I'm really glad for your family--and for you. Blossom. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Hitch

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I blame the fact that Dell first moved their production from Ireland to Poland, and then from Poland to China. I hate the fact that Lenovo bought the IBM Thinkpad line... and that brand is in China as well. The current T and W-type laptops are nothing compared to the old Thinkpad T and W's.=

Where it's produced isn't the problem. The Chinese are quite capable of quality manufacture.

But PCs have long since become commodities with commodity pricing. They are fungible, and it largely doesn't matter whose name is on the box. As long as the specs are equivalent, one will be as good as another, and purchase decision tends to come down to price, with Lowest Cost Producer winning.

Vendors are all looking for ways to shave costs, and keyboards that don't stand up to really heavy use are examples. They're cheaper.

IBM made the first PCs, but sold the PC division to Lenovo when they were losing money on it. They couldn't be Lowest Cost Producer. HP under its previous CEO announced plans to end PC production because they were losing money at it. . The market did not react well, and current CEO Meg Whitman reversed the decision. Dell went private in a leveraged buyout when they couldn't produce the revenues and profits the stock market wanted, and had already shifted production to China. In the PC business, you will make pennies on the dollar if you are lucky, and the goal is to take in as many dollars as possible to make pennies on.

We want it cheap. You get what you pay for.

What you're describing is one reason why my main system is a desktop with separate keyboard and monitor.
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Dennis

[CRussel]

Even my laptops have always had separate keyboard, mouse, and monitor. And I now have wireless kbd and mouse that travel with me. However, you mostly get what you pay for in the PC world. It's a highly competitive business, and if you insist on the cheapest, you get it.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Even my laptops have always had separate keyboard, mouse, and monitor. And I now have wireless kbd and mouse that travel with me. However, you mostly get what you pay for in the PC world. It's a highly competitive business, and if you insist on the cheapest, you get it.

I've used external keyboard, mouse, and monitor with laptops. Fine for home use, but less fine when traveling (though I still prefer an actual mouse to a touchpad.)

But efforts to shave pennies bite in various ways. Several system failures here over the years have been the result of failed power supplies. An old friend built a high end system, with 8 core processor, 64GB of RAM, SSD, and other goodies. He carefully got a high end power supply that was normally picked by gamers precisely to avoid that issue. (He's not a gamer. His system is explicitly designed to suck down huge open source repositories currently in a distributed version control system like CVS and convert them to something like git to ease development and maintenance down the road.)

When you custom build a desktop, you can pick and choose best of breed components. Laptops are more restricted.
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Dennis

[wodin]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

...
When you custom build a desktop, you can pick and choose best of breed components. Laptops are more restricted.
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Dennis

Which exactly why mom and pop white box builders have been able to scratch out survival, but they are few and far apart. I worked for one as a PC tech in the 1990's, it was one of only a couple left in the Honolulu metropolitan area that survived the big box influx.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Where it's produced isn't the problem. The Chinese are quite capable of quality manufacture.

Yes, as long as you have Western quality control. It is very well known that some Chinese manufacturers produce stuff exactly to spec in the first few weeks or months, until the commissioning company is sure that everything's well on the road.

And then, the Chinese use a bit thinner plastic here, and some less strong hinges there, or even a similar, but cheaper screen from another manufacturer... until you pay for high-end stuff but get mediocre products.

We want it cheap. You get what you pay for.

I wouldn't call a €2000 workstation-class laptop, that's being positioned by Dell capable of handling anything and everything... cheap. That's the lowest price you can get it for in the Netherlands.

I could just get a new €600 laptop every two years and throw them away when they start falling apart, and I'd be cheaper...

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wodin

Which is exactly why mom and pop white box builders have been able to scratch out survival, but they are few and far apart. I worked for one as a PC tech in the 1990's, it was one of only a couple left in the Honolulu metropolitan area that survived the big box influx.

My local PC retailer of choice is part of the Micro Center chain. They stock just about everything, and I can order on line and then go pick it up, and they are open seven days a week. This is a boon, as I normally need whatever it is now, and not "place the order, and wait for it to be shipped and arrive".

They have an extensive DIY section aimed at those who like to build from components, who are mostly gamers. I got cured of that bad habit. My needs aren't all that extraordinary, and an off-the-shelf system meets them handily. (The current desktop is a refurb off-lease corporate box. It had adequate specs, and came with Windows, Chrome, Adobe Reader and Java, but didn't have any of the trialware that bloats new offerings. The stuff it had were all things I'd want anyway, so I was pleased.)

There are assortment of folks around where I am offering repair services, but no one I've seen lately offers custom building. If you need a custom built system you are probably somebody who can DIY. All you need is the parts.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Yes, as long as you have Western quality control. It is very well known that some Chinese manufacturers produce stuff exactly to spec in the first few weeks or months, until the commissioning company is sure that everything's well on the road.

And then, the Chinese use a bit thinner plastic here, and some less strong hinges there, or even a similar, but cheaper screen from another manufacturer... until you pay for high-end stuff but get mediocre products.

How likely that is to happen depends on the vendor contracting with them. Play too many games and the vendor has other companies they can deal with.

In this case, I suspect Dell signed off on the keyboard design used.

I wouldn't call a €2000 workstation-class laptop, that's being positioned by Dell capable of handling anything and everything... cheap. That's the lowest price you can get it for in the Netherlands.

I wouldn't either. But the assumption is that a laptop will travel, and I don't think they expect it to get the sort of sustained usage you put in.

(The guy I know these days who does that is a developer whose $DAYJOB requires a fair amount of travel, like "We're sending you to Tokyo for a week!" unexpectedly. He does his development work on his laptop because he can do it while traveling, and pounds the crap out of machines.)

There are several laptops here, but they don't get anywhere near that heavy a usage. I have gone through several replacement keyboards and mice for the desktop, but those are separate components.

I could just get a new €600 laptop every two years and throw them away when they start falling apart, and I'd be cheaper...

You could. Or, since you don't travel that much, you can do what you appear to be doing and shift back to a desktop.
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Dennis

[PeterT]

My long time companion Nexus 7 (2013) passed away this morning I was happily browsing when the screen went crazy, scrolling like a banshee. After that no touches were recognized.

Power off and on didn't help.

So I bought a Samsung WE instead.

Now it's called getting used to a new device, new version of Android.

Initial impressions are very nice device.

Sent from my SM-T713 using Tapatalk

[issybird]

Originally Posted by PeterT

My long time companion Nexus 7 (2013) passed away this morning

Lalalala, I don't hear you. I love mine and use it all the time, but I know she's getting a little long in the tooth.

Condolences. Glad you like her successor.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

You could. Or, since you don't travel that much, you can do what you appear to be doing and shift back to a desktop.
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Dennis

I realize that this makes me the odd man out, but I freely admit, I love desktops far more than laptops. For the work I do, being able to use 3 monitors and have three browser windows open (where we run SAAS) at the same time is invaluable. I have a few laptops, yes--an older first-gen Thinkpad and a newer Thinkpad Yoga--and I use the latter often, but it's not for "serious" work, for me. I do things like post in forums, gab online, that type of thing. For the biz, I'd be bald from yanking hair out of my head if I had to constantly flip back-forth from one browser tab to another.

(shrug) FWIW.

Hitch

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I realize that this makes me the odd man out, but I freely admit, I love desktops far more than laptops. For the work I do, being able to use 3 monitors and have three browser windows open (where we run SAAS) at the same time is invaluable. I have a few laptops, yes--an older first-gen Thinkpad and a newer Thinkpad Yoga--and I use the latter often, but it's not for "serious" work, for me. I do things like post in forums, gab online, that type of thing. For the biz, I'd be bald from yanking hair out of my head if I had to constantly flip back-forth from one browser tab to another.

(shrug) FWIW.

I had a dual monitor setup at employers. I loved them, but simply don't have room for a second where the computer is setup. I do have a 23" monitor in 1920x1080 resolution, but I wouldn't mind a larger one. My goal, since I do occasional DTP, is to be able to display two 8.5x11 pages side by side in the DTP program at full size. The current setup almost does it. (What I'd like is available but cost$, and my needs aren't sufficient to justify the outlay.)

But the nice thing about the desktop is the possibility of expansion. It has a 3.1ghz quad core Intel processor with a 3.4ghz turbo mode, which is adeqaute for what I do, but a processor upgrade is possible. It has 8GB RAM, which is quite adequate, but can be expanded to 32GB. I can add more disk storage cheaply. The built in Intel graphics are adequate, since I'm not a gamer (and actually better than the ATI video card from the machine the current one replaced), but if I want it, I can move to a higher end ATI or nVidia card. The machine didn't come with USB 3, and I haven't needed it, bit a PCI USB3 add-on card is a cheap upgrade option, and on my list.

And the current machine is a refurb off lease HP corporate unit, designed for easy service, so if I have to pop the hood and fiddle with the innards, it's simple.

There are several laptops here, but they are strictly travel machines with the exception of the SOs. It's her regular machine, but her needs are fairly simple and what she has meets them. She also doesn't pound hers the was Katsunami pounds his, so the keyboard has held up fine.

And I'm almost at the point where an Android tablet could replace a laptop as a travel device. I'd want en external keyboard, and likely a real mouse, but that's easily done, and the result will be smaller, lighter, and easier to transport. A tablet has adequate horsepower for the subset of things I do while traveling.
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Dennis